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211 Crew prison gang's violent culture roils behind, beyond bars

An intelligence officer for the Colorado State Penitentiary holds a photo in 2005 of a tattoo worn by a member of a white supremist gang, known as the 211 Crew. (Denver Post file)

211 Crew founder Benjamin Davis. (Colorado Department of Corrections)

The founder of a prison gang whose leaders are under investigation for possibly ordering a hit on Colorado prison chief Tom Clements formed the gang to protect white prisoners after a black inmate broke his jaw in the Denver County Jail, sources and court records indicate.

Over the next 17 years, Benjamin Davis, 37, molded the "211 Crew" into a Colorado white supremacist prison gang that preys on other inmates, demands that members outside prison smuggle drugs into prison and orders beatings for members who step out of line.

Davis surrounded himself with close criminal associates, including his companion in a 1994 robbery spree, and appointed inmates with track records for brutality as his enforcers, court records show.

Jody Mobley. (Colorado Department of Corrections)

The Denver Post reviewed hundreds of pages of Denver District Court documents that reveal the violent inner workings of the gang; how Davis ordered enforcers to beat members for infractions including having sex with black inmates, and how he and his lieutenants pulled robberies and organized drug rings behind bars.

Colorado Department of Corrections officials are trying to determine whether the gunman who shot Clements at his doorstep March 19 in Monument was acting on his own or under order from 211 Crew superiors.

Authorities say the gunman was believed to be 211 soldier Evan Ebel, 28. Ebel was killed in a shootout with Texas authorities after a high-speed chase.

Ebel also has been tied to the killing on March 17 of Domino's Pizza delivery driver Nathan Leon. Authorities now believe Ebel used Leon's shirt and gear as a ruse when he went to Clements' doorstep. Authorities say bomb-making materials also were found in the car.

DOC and El Paso County sheriff's investigators have declined to discuss a possible motive for Clements' murder.

Brian Gargan. (Colorado Department of Corrections)

But DOC sources, speaking to The Post on condition of anonymity, said one possible motive for the Clements murder was the shuffling weeks earlier of top 211 Crew members, who were moved from Sterling Correctional Facility to Buena Vista Correctional Complex in early March. Ebel was released from Sterling on Jan. 28.

The court records obtained by The Post — including letters from his father and girlfriend — stem from Davis' 2007 conviction for racketeering, assault, conspiracy and solicitation to commit assault, as well as his subsequent appeal.

Danny Shea. (Colorado Department of Corrections)

Davis was sentenced to 96 years for violating the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act and another 12 years in prison for conspiracy and solicitation to commit second-degree assault.

He was one of 19 people indicted for their roles in the 211 Crew. The indictment details the gang's elaborate communication through coded notes and secret slang.

Davis, who appealed his conviction as a habitual criminal and his 108-year prison sentence, is scheduled to appear in Denver District Court on Monday. An appeals court ordered a trial judge to consider whether Davis must serve the sentence consecutively or concurrently to sentences for three robberies. He pleaded guilty to those in 1995.

Davis was raised by parents who did drugs, often in front of him, and were physically abusive, according to the court records. His father acknowledged that he was a convicted felon who served jail sentences in four states. According to a letter written by Davis' father, Israel Davis, to Judge Christina Habas, who sentenced Davis to prison, his son was always in trouble in school. He spent much of his teen years in detention centers, once for robbery.

He used LSD more than 100 times, huffed gas and tried methamphetamine. At age 19, he started using cocaine and went on a robbery spree, according to court records.

Joshua Craig Sperry. (Colorado Department of Corrections)

In November 1994, he donned a ski mask and brandished a gun, robbing a Subway store and then an Ace Hardware store in Denver. On Nov. 30, 1994, he shot a man in the butt while robbing a Bennigan's Restaurant, also in Denver. Davis was arrested at a Las Vegas bus terminal, after his father alerted authorities.

Israel Davis could not be reached for comment, but in the letter to the court he said Denver jailers put his son in a cellblock for violent offenders with five white inmates and 60 black inmates. As Davis was walking on the third tier of the cellblock, a black inmate stepped out of a cell and hit him from behind with a sock stuffed with soap bars.

"Benjamin's jaw was so badly broken, he had to hold it up with his hands," Israel Davis wrote. "Two inmates were beating him and attempting to throw him over the railing when another black inmate whom Benjamin had known on the street ran up and saved him. Otherwise, he would have been killed."

Davis' father said after his son was sentenced to 30 years for the robberies, Benjamin and three other inmates used bars of soap to scrawl "211 Crew" on prison walls to leave the impression that there were many gang members.

According to the court records, Benjamin Davis and Danny Charles Shea, 38, founded the 211 Crew.

"His perception was that the Hispanic jail population and the African-American jail population were well enough organized that they could protect each other against assault or homicide attempts by other race members," a psychologist wrote in court documents. "He became convinced that if he was going to make it in prison, he would need to organize enough people of similar beliefs that they could protect each other from the Black and Hispanic gangs."

Israel Davis claimed that at first the 211 Crew was only a deception. They wanted to leave the impression there was a powerful gang for their own protection. But men started asking if they could join.

"At that point they came up with rules, a hierarchy, membership requirements, etc., and became a real prison gang," Israel Davis wrote. "Technically, Benjamin did break the law, for what appears to be a good reason, to stay alive."

Davis created a hierarchy of ranks within his gang, according to the records. In June 2002, officials found an organizational roster that put Davis at the top in a position called "shot-caller."

The 211 Crew, apparently named after the California penal code for robbery, "a 211," took on Irish, Nazi and Viking identities. Members often tattoo themselves with shamrocks, Nazi swastikas or Viking horns. By 2005, state officials said the gang had 300 members. State officials declined to comment on current gang numbers.

Below Davis was an inner circle, then crew leaders, enforcers, soldiers and prospects. They include Shea, Joshua Sperry, 36, Jody Mobley, 37, and Brian Gargan, 42, who decided who could join and which members should be punished. Final approval for 211 Crew hits had to come from Davis.

Members communicated through letters and phone calls. They went by codes including a 187, California penal code for a murder.

According to Israel Davis, prison officials accused his son of using Swahili to communicate gang actions and that he used code in his artwork. Israel Davis said they were absurd accusations. He said his son isn't even a racist; he has two black siblings.

High ranking 211 Crew members ordered lower ranking members and prospects, who wanted to join the gang, to carry out assaults, according to court records. Once in the gang, they were in for life.

"I'm looking for killers," Davis wrote in a June 26, 2003, letter to crew member Jason "Satan" Newman. "Respect is earned, not handed out. You earn respect by putting in work."

The letter, or "kite," was signed with two "S.S." bolts, or Nazi symbols.

According to the 211 code, consorting with blacks carried harsh punishments.

In 1998, 211 Crew leader Brian Tucker wrote a letter to Shea, a member of the inner circle and said a 211 gang member was having sex with a black man referred to in a racial slur.

"I can't do anything about it until I get the go-ahead from somebody above me," he wrote.

Davis was the only one at a higher level than Tucker. On July 19, 1998, Davis wrote a letter to Shea.

"He's cut off bro. That is a straight violation," he said. "That dude makes us look weak bro. He ain't Irish."

The letter indicated that prison sex involving 211 Crew members — referred to as "Irishmen" — was tolerated if it was with a white inmate, but never with a black, again using a racial slur.

"I'll be writing him soon and letting him know he ain't with the handball Crew no more. I know you and Dude are cool homie — but this is more than homies — it's business on this handball court ... so back our play on this & cut him loose. You don't need no freak like that on your team dogg! I'd rather go to war with five wolves than 500 sheep ... From the cradle to the grave, Leprechaun."

However, the inmate testified at a grand jury on Sept. 10, 2004, that the reason he was assaulted was because he refused a gang order to kill an inmate for snitching.

The court records indicate that Davis authorized an assault on the inmate accused of having sex with a black inmate in a March 14, 1999, letter to Brian "Bones" Gargan, a 211 Crew enforcer.

There's a "punk---- bitch named Snoopy there ... send him our ill regards ... crash him but don't get crossed out over it," Davis wrote, adding that he disrespected the team.

On March 25, 1999, the inmate was lifting weights at Limon's yard when Gargan assaulted him. He said he fell to his knees and "received a wave of punches to his face from Gargan."

"This is for 211. You disrespected us."

On March 31, 1999, DOC held a disciplinary hearing against Davis for his role in the inmate's beating.

Davis told the review board, "If I tell someone to jump off a bridge, it doesn't mean he has to do it."

He was sentenced to punitive segregation.

On June 15, 2002, a Department of Corrections employee found a letter written to other 211 Crew members. There was a "green-lighted" hit and assault list.

Snoopy's name was on the list with a "187" beside it, meaning that Davis gave approval to kill him.

The same letter indicated that Gargan had been promoted to the 211 Crew's inner circle.

Inside the "Crew"

FOUNDER

According to court documents, Benjamin Davis, 37, founded the 211 Crew in 1995 and molded it into a Colorado white-supremacist prison gang that preys on other inmates, orders members outside prison to smuggle drugs into prison and orders hits on members who step out of line.

INNER CIRCLE

All members of 211 Crew are recruited inside the prison, but some of Davis' most-trusted subordinates were known to him outside prison.

March 19, 2013: Colorado prison chief Tom Clements is shot to death about 8:30 p.m. as he answers the door of his home in Monument. A black Cadillac is spotted near the scene.

March 21, 2013: A sheriff's deputy in Texas attempts to stop Evan Ebel on a routine traffic stop, spawning a wild chase and shootout that ends in Wise County when a deputy is wounded and Ebel is shot and killed.

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